U.P. Yoddha lose first home match of the season by a slender margin
9th October 2019, Greater Noida: U.P. Yoddha – the U.P. franchisee of the Pro Kabaddi League today lost the first match of the home leg to Telugu Titans in Match 129 of Pro Kabaddi League Season 7 by a score line of 36-41. The match was being played at the Shaheed Vijay Singh Pathik Sports Complex, Greater Noida. The standout performances for U.P. Yoddha came from Shrikant Jadhav and Rishank Devadiga who scored eight points each in the match. Rishank Devadiga also achieved the milestone of scoring 650 points in the league overall accompanied by Shrikant Jadhav who achieved the milestone of scoring 300 touch points overall.
The first half of the match started with Telugu Titans taking an early lead in the half as they raced to a 6-4 lead with Siddharth Desai leading from the front for the Titans. U.P. then closed the gap to 8-10 with the help of a bonus point and a touch point by Rishank Devadiga. The match was a neck to neck competition but Titans managed to get a slender lead of 12-9 with nine minutes left in the half. But, Yoddha soon closed the gap to level the score with two successful tackles by Amit followed by Captain, Nitesh Kumar and a successful raid by Rishank Devadiga in a do or die situation. Now, it was turn of the Yoddha as they inflicted the first all-out on the Titans with a tackle by local boy Ashu Singh. This helped U.P. rush into an 18-14 lead with 3 minutes left in the half. The Yoddha had the momentum on their side with loud cheers of the home crowd as they went into the half-time leading 20-14.
The second half looked like one way traffic as U.P. Yoddha inflicted the second all-out of the match with Captain Nitesh Kumar tackling Rakesh Gowda to give his team a 28-17 lead with 16 minutes to go in the half. Telugu was trying to make a comeback as they inflicted the first all-out of the match on U.P. Yoddha as Siddharth Desai scored a two pointer to get both Sumit and Aashish Nagar out. The score now stood at 33-27 in favour of the Yoddha with seven minutes left in the half. Things were getting really close as a super raid by Siddharth Desai which caught Nitesh, Amit and Gurdeep off-guard to close the gap at 33-31. It was now the Yoddha who made a brilliant effort with a Super Tackle from Sumit to get Siddharth Desai to again move slightly ahead into a two point lead at 35-33. U.P. Yoddha seemed to have lost the flair all of a sudden as a second all-out on them by the Titans made sure the Yoddha trailed in the match for the first time by 36-38. In spite of the valiant efforts by U.P. Yoddha in the end Titans came out victorious by 41-36.
U.P Yoddha now stand at 69 points from 21 matches with 12 wins, seven losses and two draws. U.P. will now face Bengaluru Bulls on October 11, 2019, Friday at the Shaheed Vijay Singh Pathik Sports Complex, Greater Noida. The match will begin at 8:30 PM IST.